The Pillars of the House Part 45

Mr. Froggatt was almost as eager about this pleasure for 'his young people,' as he called them, as they could be. He came in early to drive Geraldine to the station, and looked with grandfatherly complacency at the four sisters, who had ventured on the extravagance of white pique and black ribbons, and in their freshness looked as well-dressed as any lady in the land.

He entertained Cherry all the way with his admiration of Wilmet's beauty and industry, and when arrived at the station, waited there with her till first the three girls came up with Alice Knevett, white with pink ribbons, and then the choir arrived, marching with the banner with the rood of St. Oswald before them, each with a blue satin bow in his b.u.t.ton-hole, and the bag with his surplice under his arm, the organist, the schoolmaster, and the two curates, bringing up the rear. Mr. Bevan, my Lady, and Miss Price, whirled up in the carriage, the omnibus discharged the friends of the choir, and two waggon loads of musical talent from the villages came lumbering and cheering in! The very train roared and shrieked in with a sound of cheering from its vertebrae, and banners were projecting from the windows, amid nodding heads and waving handkerchiefs of all colours; the porters ran about distracted, and Geraldine began to be alarmed, and to think of the old woman of Servia, but behold, Felix had her on one side, Mr. Froggatt on the other, a solid guard held open the door, and protected her from the rush, and before she well knew what they were doing with her, she was lying on the seat of the carriage, with her sisters and Alice all in a row in front of her; the recently crowded platform was empty of all but a stray porter, the stationmaster, and Mr. Froggatt kissing his hand, and promising to come and fetch her on her return.

The train seemed hardly to have attained its full speed before it slackened again, and another merry load was disposed of within its joints. Another start, another arrival; and before the motion was over, a flash of sunny looks had glanced before the sisters' eyes.

There was Lance, perfectly radiant, under his square trencher cap-- hair, eyes, cheeks, blue bow, boots, and all, seeming to sparkle with delight as he s.n.a.t.c.hed open the door.

'Hurrah! there they are. Give her out to me, Wilmet!' (as if she had been a parcel).

'Stay, wait for Felix. You can't---'

Felix rushed up from his colleagues of the choir, and Geraldine was set on her foot and crutch. 'Come along! I've got Ball's chair for you, and Bill Harewood is sitting in it for fear any one should bone it. Where's your ticket?'

'Lance, take care! Don't take her faster than she can go!' as he whisked her over the platform; and Wilmet was impeded by the seeking for Alice's parasol and Angela's cloak. They were quite out of sight when Lance had dragged Cherry through the crowd at the door, and brought her to the wheeled chair just in time to find Bill Harewood glaring out of it like the red planet Mars, and a.s.severating that he was the lame young lady it was hired for.

In went Geraldine, imploring to wait for Wilmet, but all in vain; off went the chair, owner and escort alike in haste, and she was swept along, with Lance and Will with a hand holding either side of the chair, imparting breathless sc.r.a.ps of information, and exchanging remarks: 'There goes the Archdeacon.' 'The Thorpe choir is not come, and Miles is mad about it.' 'That's the Town Hall.' 'There's where Jack licked a cad for bullying.' 'There's a cannon-ball of Oliver Cromwell's sticking out of that wall.' 'That's the only shop fit to get gingerbeer at!' 'That old horse in that cab was in the Crimea.'

'We come last in the procession, and if you see a fellow like a sheep in spectacles, that's Shapcote.' 'Hurrah! what a stunning lot! where is it from?' 'Bembury? My eyes, if that big fellow doesn't mean to bawl us all down. Down that way--that's the palace. Whose carriage is it stopping there! Now, here's the Close.'

'Is that the Cathedral? Oh!'

'You may well say so! No, not that way.' And on rattled poor amazed Geraldine through an archway, under some lime trees, round a corner, round another comer, to another arched doorway, with big doors studded with nails, with a little door for use cut out of one of the big ones.

'You must get out here,' said Lance, 'we are close by,' and he helped her out, and paid and thanked the man with the chair. 'Here's our domain,' he continued, as he introduced Cherry through the open doorway into a small flagged court, with two houses, gray and old- fashioned, forming one side, and on the other an equally old long low building with narrow latticed arched windows. Opposite to the entrance was a handsome b.u.t.tressed Gothic-looking edifice, behind which rose the gable of the north transept of the Cathedral, beautiful with a rose window, and farther back, far, far above, the n.o.ble tower.

Already everything was very wonderful to Geraldine. 'That's our kennel,' said Lance, pointing to the low buildings to the right.

'School's behind; but we boarders are put up in one of the old monks'

dormitories, between court and cloister.'

'Is it really!' exclaimed Geraldine.

'So my father says,' said Will. 'Here's our door.' Another stone- arched pa.s.sage, almost dark, with doors opening on either side, seemed common to both houses; and Will was inviting them to enter, but Lance held back. 'No time,' he said; 'better call your father.'

'The others,' sighed Geraldine.

'Bother the others! That's right: here he is!'

'Halloo, Father!' cried Will; 'we've got Cherry.'

'By which unceremonious designation I imagine you to mean to introduce Miss Underwood,' said a figure, appearing from beneath the archway, in trencher cap, surplice, and hood, with white hair, and a sort of precision and blandness that did not at all agree with Cherry's preconceived notions of the Harewood household. 'I am very glad to see you. My ladies, as usual, are unready. Will you have a gla.s.s of wine? No?--What do you say, Lancelot?--Very well, we will take you in at once. You will not object to waiting there, and this is the quiet time. --Boys, you ought to be with the choir.'

'Oceans of time, Dad,' coolly answered Will; 'none of the fellows up there are under weigh.'

Mr. Harewood offered his arm, but perceived that Cherry preferred Lance and her crutch; advancing to the door opposite that by which they had entered, he unlocked it, and Geraldine found herself pa.s.sing through a beauteous old lofty chamber, with a groined Tudor roof, all fans, and pendants, and shields; tall windows stained with armorial bearings, parchment charters and blazoned genealogies against the walls, and screens upon screens loaded with tomes of all ages, writing-tables and chairs here and there, and gla.s.s-topped tables containing illuminations and seals. 'Here is my paradise,' said the librarian, smiling.

'I think it must be,' said Geraldine, with a long breath of wonder and admiration.

'Ah! would you not like to have a good look, Cherry?' said Lance.

'That's Richard Coeur de Lion's seal in there.'

'Don't begin about it--don't set him on,' whispered Willie, with a sign of his head towards his father, who was fitting the key into the opposite door, 'or we shall all stay here for the rest of the day.'

This low door open, Mr. Harewood and the boys bared their heads as they entered, and Geraldine felt the strange solemn sensation of finding herself in a building of vast height and majesty, full of a wonderful stillness, as though the confusion of sounds she had been in so recently were far, far off.

'Where now, Lancelot?' asked Mr. Harewood, in a hushed voice; 'do you want me any further?'

'No, thank you, sir, I'll just take her across the choir to Mr.

Miles, and then join the rest of us at the vestry.'

'Good-bye for the present, then,' said Mr. Harewood kindly. 'You are in safe hands. Your brother comes round every one. _I_ could not do this.'

Through the side-screen, into the grandly beautiful choir, arching high above, with stall-work and graceful canopies below, and rich gla.s.s casting down beams of coloured light--all for 'glory and for beauty,' thought Geraldine.

'You must not stop; you must look when you are settled. That's my side,' pointing to one of the choristers' desks. 'It will be only we that sing in here; the congregation is in the nave--a perfect sea of chairs. I'll come for you when it is over. Here is Mr. Miles. My sister, sir.'

A pale gentleman in spectacles, with a surplice and beautiful blue hood, was here addressed. He too greeted Geraldine, very shyly but kindly, and she found herself expected to ascend some alarming- looking stone steps. The organ was on the choir screen, and to the organist's little private gallery was she to ascend. It was a difficult matter, and she had in her trepidation despairingly recognised the difference between Lance's good will and Felix's practised strength; but at last she was landed in an admirable little cushioned nook, hidden by two tall painted carved canopies--exactly over the Dean's head, her brother told her--and where, as she sat sideways, she could see through the quatrefoils into the choir on the right hand, and the nave on the left. 'Delightful! Oh, thank you, how kind! If I am only not keeping any one out.'

'No,' said Lance, smiling, and whispering lower than ever, 'he has no one belonging to him. He hates women. Never a petticoat was here before in his reign. Have you a book?'

'They are robing, Underwood,' said the misogynist in the organ-loft; and Lance hurried away, leaving Geraldine alone, palpitating a good deal, but almost enjoying the solitude, in the vast structure, where the sanct.i.ty of a thousand years of worship seemed to fill the very air, as she gazed at the white vaultings and bosses carved with emblems above, at the vista of cl.u.s.tered columns terminating in the great jewelled west window, or at the crown-like loveliness that encompa.s.sed the sanctuary. All was still, except a deep low tone of the organ now and then. Mr. Miles looked in after the first, to hope she did not feel it uncomfortably, and to a.s.sure her that though she was too near his organ, she need not fear its putting forth its full powers; it was to be kept in subordination, and only guide the voices. This was great attention from a woman-hater, and Geraldine ventured to reiterate her thanks; at which he smiled, and said, 'When one has such a boy as your brother, there is pleasure in doing anything he wishes. You are musical?'

'I never was able to learn to play.'

'But you can read music?'

'Oh yes,' for she had often copied it.

So he brought her whole sheets of music, and put her in the way of following and understanding, perceiving, as he went, that she was full of intelligence and perception.

When he went back to his post, a few groups, looking very small, were creeping in by transept doors--by favour, like herself: then a little white figure flitted across to the desks, opened and marked the books, took up something, and disappeared; and in another moment Lance, in his broad white folds, was at her side. 'Here's the music.

Oh, you have it! I've seen Fee,' he whispered; 'they are at Mrs.

Harewood's, all right!' and he was gone.

Here she sat, her attention divided between the sacred impressions of the place, its exceeding beauty, and the advance of the mult.i.tude into the nave, as the doors were open, and they surged up the s.p.a.ce left in the central aisle, and occupied the ranks of chairs prepared for them. Then came a long pause; she scanned each row in search of her sisters, and only was confused by the host of heads; felt lost and lonely, and turned her eyes and mind to the silent grandeur to the east, rather than the throng to the west.

At last there came the sweet floating sound of the chant, growing in power like the ocean swell as it approached, and the first bright banner appeared beneath the lofty pointed archway; and the double white file came flowing on like a snowy glacier, the chant becoming clear and high as the singers of each parish marched along to their places, each ranked under a bright banner with the symbol of their church's dedication. St. Oswald's rood helped Geraldine to make out that of Bexley better than their faces, though she did make out her eldest brother's fair face, and trace him to his seat. The cathedral singers came at last, and that kenspeckle red head of Will Harewood's directed her to the less conspicuous locks belonging to Lance, whose own clear thrush-like note she could catch as he pa.s.sed beneath the screen. Then came the long train of parish clergy, the canons, the Dean, and lastly the Bishop, the sight of whom recalled so much.

The unsurpliced contribution had meantime been ushered in by the side doors, and filled seats in the rear of the others, so as to add their voices without marring the general effect--the perfection of which Geraldine enjoyed--of the white-robed mult.i.tude that seemed to fill the whole chancel.

The sight seemed to inspire her whole soul with a strange yearning joy, as though she were beholding a faint earthly reflex of the great vision of the Beloved Disciple; and far more was it so at the sound, which realised in a measure the words, 'As the voice of mighty waters, and as the voice of thunder.'

These were the very words that had been selected for the Second Lesson, and the First consisted of those verses in which we hear of David's commencement of the continual chant of psalms at the sanctuary; and both, unwonted as they were, gave a wonderful thrill to the audience, as though opening to them a new comprehension of their office as singers of the sanctuary.

There is no need to dwell on the wonderful and touching exhilaration derived from the harmony of vast numbers with one voice attuned to praise. It is a sensation which is so nearly a foretaste of eternity, that partic.i.p.ation alone can give the most distant perception thereof. To the entirely unprepared and highly sensitive Geraldine it was most overpowering, all the more because she was entirely out of sight, and without power of taking part by either gesture or posture-- she was pa.s.sive and had no vent for her emotion.

Lance, who made his way to her round through the transept the moment he had disrobed, found her pale, panting, tearful, and trembling, with burning cheeks, so that his exaltation turned to alarm. 'Are you done up, Cherry? It is too hot up here? Ill try to find Felix or Wilmet, which?'

'Neither! I am quite well, only--O Lance, I did not know anything could be so heavenly. There seemed to be the sweeping of angels'

wings all round and over me, and Papa's voice quite clear.'